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Quake Champions is an arena shooter for 2017
Creator Tim Willits explains how id Software is adapting in the age of the team FPS.
Quake is back
© Bethesda
As the name suggests, Quake Champions is a new type of Quake game: one designed to feel contemporary in 2017, modern even. That might sound asinine, but when you consider that the most recently released in the series, Quake Live, is simply an online version of 1999’s Quake 3, you realise how much stock developer id Software has put in heritage above all else.
With Doom and Quake, the team at id all but created the first person shooter genre in the 1990s, but the veteran studio fell into something of a malaise at the turn of the century. A 3D Doom sequel stumbled, as did a new IP, Rage. The studio failed to grasp that the shooter had evolved: Halo, Counter-Strike, Call of Duty and Team Fortress 2 changed the focus to team play and co-operation, and players owning different roles. The success of Overwatch is the logical outcome of this trend.
Now though, id Software are experiencing something of a renaissance, its franchises once again back in fashion. Sister studio Machines Games have resurrected the Wolfenstein series to critical acclaim, while last year id’s own Doom revival surprised fans with a nostalgia heavy shooter with a seriously meaty single player campaign.
With Quake Champions, id are now turning their attention to multiplayer once more, and as the game’s creator and studio director Tim Willits tells us in an interview this week, Quake Champions is not merely Quake Live with a new lick of paint. With individual champions with their own abilities, it’s about working together to gel as a team – until you get good enough to duke it out in a classic one on one duel, at least. But will the focus on a PC-only launch hamper the game’s potential? Read on for the full interview.
You've been with the Quake franchise since the very beginning, and from Doom early on too. The two series are closely related, so what are the differences between them? What defines each?
Willits: I've been here for 21 years, and I've worked from Ultimate Doom onward. So originally Quake was the true, 3D version of Doom, but over time we've tried to separate them. The big thing is with Quake, and the reason we created Quake Champions, which is a multiplayer arena-based game, is that most people associate Quake with multiplayer. It's that 3D arena, high flying, fast action multiplayer that's the DNA of a Quake game, where Doom had great both player modes, but most people associate it with the good versus evil battle between you and the forces of hell, and it has much more of a single-player focus to it. I'm not saying it's only a single player game, as we also made a single player Quake game, but we're really focusing on the multiplayer aspect of Quake, and the true Quake DNA to help separate it from Doom.
How exactly did Quake Champions spin out of Quake Live? What was the decision there?
So, we had run the Quake Live service for many years. People loved playing the game; we had a great community because the gameplay was so much fun, but it was getting a little long in the tooth – the original Quake 3 [on which Quake Live is heavily based] came out in 1999. When the team was working on [the 2016 version of] Doom and we saw how successful that was going to be by bringing back that Doom DNA, we felt that Quake could use that same infusion. We had talked about making a Champions of Quake, but when we saw how Doom was shaping up, we decided to put more resources on it, which is why we’re working with Saber Interactive, who really bring this full circle, with a modern game with all the modern graphics and gameplay – to make it a true Triple A PC multiplayer game.
Tell us about the business model. Quake Champions is free-to-play, but so often that has caveats.
So, we want to get as many people into the game as possible. You can download it and play for free, or you can buy the Champions Pack, as there are a lot of people who want to just start playing as the different champions. The confusion is if you want to stick to the free-to-play route. Through the process of playing you can earn an in-game currency, and eventually you'll be able to 'purchase' the individual champions that you want. So you can either go all-in, which is ultimately the best deal, or you can go the free-to-play route, or you can just buy the champions that you want. Or you can basically earn an in-game currency to buy the champions you want. We really tried to make it as easy to get into as possible. There were lots of people who played Quake Live for years – which was free-to-play – and they just want to get their Quake fix.
The original arena shooter returns
© Bethesda
Doom was a big hit last year for id Software – arguably unexpectedly so. What have the team learned from that?
The success of Doom is making Quake Champions way easier. The big takeaway from that game was that if you stay true to the DNA of the game, and you ensure the core game is fun and exciting and triggers the emotional response you expect from the franchise, then you can layer on modern features and modern game designs to improve the overall experience. But if the core of the game is not what people expect, that's where you run into trouble. With Quake Champions, our first goal was to make it feel like Quake. So I was so happy when we had real people coming up and playing it [at the PAX expo], with no agenda. They weren't trying to be nice or anything; they stood up and said 'Yeah, that feels like Quake'. That's that DNA that is so important to capture, especially with franchises that have a legacy like Doom or Quake.
What are the modern features that you're putting over the top in this instance?
The obvious one is the champions themselves. I believe the natural evolution of first person shooters is to have more depth and more design when it comes to the characters you play in the game. In Champions, the abilities of the characters add to the experience – they don't change the way you play. All of the upgrades are all energy based, so we're not altering the gameplay depending on what level you're on or what you buy. It's not pay to win, it's very fair, but with the modern features we feel that players that may never have played Quake will feel good, and existing fans will feel comfortable with the new elements.
Will there be a focus on nostalgia, what's the balance between weapons, classic maps and newly created levels?
I think we have a good mix. If you've seen the footage we've already showed off two levels at PAX, one of which was a new take on an old favourite in Quake 3, it's very cool, so our classic fans were like, 'yeah this is awesome' and our new fans are like 'this is just a great map'.
With our weapons, we stayed true to the feel of our weapons; we have the holy trinity, the lightning gun, the rail gun, the rocket launcher which we'll never mess with, the weapons feel like classic Quake weapons. We have a couple of secrets that we're going to unveil later; I think we have a good balance of nostalgia and paying homage to what's made this franchise great, but enough things that will make people realise it's a brand new triple A game. If you're an old-school fan you'll definitely feel right at home.
The original arena shooter returns
© Bethesda
With that in mind, movement is an important part of getting the feel right in Quake, so are you still keeping things like being able to bunny hop and so forth?
Yes. So, we have different air control based on the champions, we have different jumping and acceleration based on different champions, so if you are in the Quake world and you like all that air control, characters like Anarchy may be right up your alley. If you like more the Quake 3 feel, Ranger is this great character. You can actually jump faster in Quake Champions than you could in Quake Live.
Let's talk about the champions. How do you guys come up with the different abilities? How do you balance them?
So the abilities we try to pull from things we feel work well, and also tied to legacy. We tried to think of something fun that work well in multiplayer, but people who played the game [at preview events] can support me on this, the abilities don't fundamentally change the way you play. They add to it, they add to the strategy, but not the way you play, as all the weapons are the same among all the characters. It's important to balance things, but because each character is not game-changing – it wasn't as difficult as other games may have been. I think we've struck a nice chord between variety and strategy, but not going so far that one character would obviously be the best.
A lot of the multiplayer games that have gained traction have really been about the team focus, whereas Quake is maybe as much about solo and free-for-all and one-versus-one. What's the most important element for Champions, is it going to be teamplay or death matches where you're on your own?
That's always a problem with Quake. In the old days we pushed people towards that free-for-all, where you had 15 losers and one winner, and you were most likely a loser, and so in Champions we definitely want to push people more towards team games. We definitely like free-for-alls and duels, but something new is coming into the game: finding a champion you like and playing the team games is definitely where we think you can be most successful. You can have success with your champions, you can learn a lot about them and if you feel better about your own personal skills you can move on to more than one-versus-one, dual mode or free-for-all, but helping your team win can be just as much fun as winning it all yourself.
We have to ask: why PC-only for Quake Champions?
The brand has always been very PC focused. We wanted to make a game with no excuses, and no limitations. We want the game to run really, really, really fast, and for the top eSports competitors, the world's best Quake players, they're going to play on the PC. You can do things with the keyboard that you can't do with the controller, and we feel with the precision and speed, the PC is our best platform for that, especially for eSports.
We didn't want to get into a situation where we make a design decision based on how the console works, instead of making that decision based on the game.
It's fair to say there was a bit of skepticism about Overwatch coming to consoles as well as PC before launch, but it's proved a resounding success. Has that maybe made you reconsider about sticking to PC?
Yeah, I believe there's a competitive scene on the consoles, and I'm not completely dismissing them, it's just we wanted to focus on making the best possible Quake game that we could. We didn't want to get into a situation where we make a design decision based on how the console works, instead of making that decision based on the game. Quake has such a PC legacy that it would be dangerous to mess with the magic formula that people expect. But you are right, first person games have become extremely competitive on the console. But for Quake we felt we needed to stay as pure as possible.
So there's no possibility of seeing Quake on consoles in the future?
It's not currently in the pipeline, but we'll have to evaluate it. We always evaluate things, and we're flexible enough that we can pivot if necessary. We would have to change things though, and we'd have to see if people are OK with that. Could we get more fans if we do a different version? It would be so hard to make that call.
What's the game's current state and release date plans?
We are currently moving to closed beta soon but it's only a closed small beta. Then we're going to grow it until we feel comfortable enough that we can go larger. Players can sign up for it on quakechampions.com. The great thing about this game is that it's going to be a live service, so when we release, when we pull the beta sticker off it and say 'everyone jump in the pool', that's actually the start of the game, it's not the end. We'll continue to release champions, maps, game modes, spectator features, we may make adjustments, so we'll be closed beta until we feel we're ready to go. Once we're ready to go, we'll still make adjustments as the game grows with us and our customers.
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